“When Disney made the movie, they expected it to be in the public domain, today!” — Au contraire; The Walt Disney Corp. has been the biggest single force driving copyright term extension. If you’ll notice, the last two copyright extension acts were passed just before the copyright on “Steamboat Willie” (the first appearance of Mickey Mouse) was due to expire. The 1998 Copyright Extension Act, at least, was bought and paid for by Disney’s fat political contributions. So maybe “Lady and the Tramp” isn’t the best example to use here.

That’s the point, Jemmy. Disney is the best example to use because of their hypocrisy, and even Disney themselves had to figure Lady and the Tramp would be in the public domain by now based on IP law at the time.

They did expect it to be in the public domain today. When the film Aristocats was made they had to pay money to Peggy Lee for the songs as it was never envisioned that vhs and then dvd would allow an extra profit stream. Disney’s model was releasing the movies to theaters every seven years to catch a new crop of kids. They knew at some point their copyright would expire and only the extreme pliability of bought and paid for politicians has allowed copyright to be extended forever. I don’t think they knew how easy it would get to own the government.

The question isn’t whether Disney planned their buying of Congress to maintain the cash flow from such old works. The Constitution is clear: the purpose of copyrights is to “encourage” authors to write; the period of exclusive use is required to be “limited”. So the correct question is whether the Disney Corp and other movie makers would stop making movies if they couldn’t keep cashing in more than 50 years later. Obviously not, so the recent extensions of copyright go way beyond the length of time that serves the legitimate purpose of copyright law.